Carol Jean Hamilton was born in 1935 in Enid, Oklahoma. She graduated Midwest City High School in 1953, received her bachelor's degree from Phillips University in 1956, and later a master's degree from the University of Central Oklahoma. She taught at Midwest City Del City schools, Rose State College, and the University of Central Oklahoma. She helped found the Woody Guthrie Poets in 2004. She has published 17 books, most recently, "Such Deaths" from the Visual Arts Cooperative Press in Chicago. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize.